We need a sensible campaign finance system that encourages competitive elections and respects the rights of campaign contributors. The current campaign finance system is a byzantine, convoluted, ill-conceived, nonsensical, patched and re-patched, ineffective, embarrassing mess. Just take a look at the Federal Election Commission’s website along with two aspirin and call your doctor in the morning if the headache persists. This is a system that only Rube Goldberg would be proud of.

It is also amazingly ineffective. Presidential candidates, at least the most viable ones, have avoided the public financing portion in the last few elections. Independent expenditures routinely do end runs around the candidates’ campaigns. And the system does nothing to encourage greater competition in congressional elections. In 262 (75 percent) of the 380 House districts contested by both major parties in 2008, one of the candidates outspent the other by more than three to one. The higher spender won in 261 of the 262 “races.”

Reform Schemes: The Battle Fronts

The campaign finance issue is particularly frustrating because the two major sides in the debate are right about some things, but are also wrong in fundamental ways. Here are the sides of the policy dispute as I see them.

Reformers.

This group sees private contributions to campaigns as a corrupting influence. Some private money is needed to keep campaigns afloat, but money in politics leads to nothing good. Contributions are tantamount to bribes to get politicians to divert public resources to private uses. They beget earmarks, tailored tax loopholes, and assorted shenanigans at the expense of the public’s interest. Reformers prescribe restrictions on campaign contributions as the way to limit these ills. To reduce the problems money causes, reduce the money.

Extreme Reformers.

These folks advocate public financing, essentially a government take-over of campaign financing. This would force us through taxes to spread our wealth among the candidates who qualify for federal assistance–a nice blend of welfare, big government, and unaccountable candidates. What is worse is that the public financers blithely ignore the incentives that incumbents have to underfund campaigns. Public financing just does not survive serious scrutiny.

Opponents of Reform

This faction sees private campaign contributions as an exercise of free speech, not attempted bribery. Free speech means very little if you cannot use your resources to promote your views. Real free speech must be able to be heard and that takes money.

Both sides—reformers and opponents of reform–have a point. That is the problem. Contributions are free expression and, at the same time, opportunities to corrupt politicians. Reformers are right that contributions are corrupting since politicians want to be reelected and money helps them accomplish this goal. The data supports this, but are not really necessary. It could not be otherwise. A thought experiment: suppose one candidate outspends the opposition by a hundred to one. As long as the higher spender is remotely acceptable, is there any doubt who would win? Now suppose that you want a special favor from a congressman. You give him or her a huge contribution. No reasonable person would claim that all or most representatives are immune to enticements–at some level on some matters. As Madison reminds us, men are not angels. Reformers are right that money buys elections and money is corrupting, the only real questions are how much money it takes to have these effects.

But reformers are wrong in how they attempt to limit the influence of contributions. They assume that limiting contributions limits the influence of contributions. They must have skipped introductory economics. Scarcity increases value. Abundance decreases it. Making it more difficult for a candidate to raise campaign money by imposing contribution limits makes contributions more valuable and more corrupting. Who is more likely to be influenced by a contribution, the already well-funded candidate or the candidate with an impoverished campaign?

Changes Needed.

Clearly, we need a campaign finance system that recognizes that private campaign contributions are simultaneously a virtue of active citizenship and a vice of political corruption. It should encourage free speech, not restrict it. And it should reflect the fact that the best way to minimize the influence of money in politics is to maximize its presence.

Three changes are needed. First, contribution limits should be eliminated. They arbitrarily limit free speech without reducing the effect of money or its corrupting influence. With contribution limits removed, more campaign spending would to go through the candidates’ campaigns where they can be held accountable.

Second, tax breaks should be provided for contributions. This would make them more democratic, preserve free speech and choice, and raise the amount of money in the process so that money would matter less.

And third, in lieu of limits, a competition tax should be placed on contributions. This recognizes that a portion of every contribution undermines competitive elections. The funds collected by the tax would be distributed among the serious candidates in the race so that no one candidate could greatly outspend another and so that votes and not money would decide elections.

If Bill Gates wants to give me ten million to run for office, he should be free to do so, only some percentage (25 percent or so) would go into a fund and my dastardly opponent would get a portion so that voters could hear both sides. Most of the contribution would go to the intended candidate, but a portion would go to remedying the externality created by the contribution (the corrupting reduction in electoral competition). The corrupting aspects of private contributions would be balanced against their free speech aspects in a relatively simple and transparent system.